recipes from a girl with a big appetite & a tiny kitchen

turkey

With Thanksgiving being this past weekend, I hope everyone had a wonderful time eating all the food possible and spending time with family and friends, I know I most certainly did. Since I was traveling I went on a little hiatus due to the fact that things can get a little hectic over the holidays and I felt like I didn’t even get a chance to sit down much. Only on the plane did I sit for an extended amount of time and I doubt I have to convince anyone here how uncomfortable that is. Nonetheless, I had a great Thanksgiving full of family, food, and even got to go to the beach!

Returning to Colorado from Florida was a big change in temperature and it was necessary to cook something warm for the cold weather. Enter in this turkey, kale, and brown rice soup. I also decided it was time to make this soup because of all the indulgent food that I have gorged on for the past 5 days. A healthy meal was desperately needed and this recipe is full of veggies!

Carrots, peppers, onions, garlic, and kale to be exact. Not to mention it’s made with ground turkey and brown rice which are two things I never feel guilty about eating. You could of course swap out the ground turkey for another ground meat of your choosing and swap the brown rice for another grain like quinoa. I like this combination though because the brown rice adds a nice nuttiness and turkey is always my go to ground meat of choice.

There are always go-to recipes that you can make any day of the week. This is one of those recipes. I came up with this recipe years ago when trying to think of something healthy to make and have leftovers to easily pack for lunch. I’ve seen lots of stuffed pepper recipes, but they are usually made with rice and ground beef. This recipe swaps quinoa and ground turkey to make it something you can feel good about eating. Add in some kale and tomatoes you have a real winner!

I actually ran out of tomatoes so I added a 1/2 cup of crushed tomatoes instead. Sometimes adaptation is the best skill a cook can have!

Thanksgiving is coming and I cannot wait! Thanksgiving is a food lovers dream. The mashed potatoes, the gravy, the pies, and of course the turkey. It seems like turkey only makes an appearance on Thanksgiving or on a sandwich throughout the year. I’m not sure I agree with those being the only options so when I saw a nice, big turkey breast for sale in the store I decided that was what’s for dinner!

Looks good doesn’t it? I only got one breast since I was only feeding two people. It was just under 3 lbs. If you had more people to feed you could just grab another one. Just double the ingredients and cooking time and you should be good to go!